“We’re looking specifically at what is going to happen as we try to get a whole bunch more electric vehicles on the road,” says EV-TEC director Ross Baldick. “What are the implications in terms of charging structure; what are the implications in terms of power generation that we’re going to need; what are the implications in terms of emissions; what are the implications in terms of paying for roads when people, instead of paying gasoline taxes, are purchasing electricity?”

One potential answer is close to home: Austin’s Pecan Street Project is examining smart energy grid technology, and its impact on vehicle charging, at the Mueller development. “I think there’s a great opportunity for the Mueller area to be a test bed for seeing what happens when we get significant numbers of electric vehicles,” says Baldick.

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Plans for a regional electric vehicle corridor are getting a $500,000 boost from the Department of Energy.

Tuesday, Austin Energy announced the federal grant, meant to bolster the Texas River Cities (TRC) initiative. A new effort, Texas River Cities is a partnership between electricity providers from Williamson to Bexar counties, with buy-in from Austin Energy, San Antonio’s CPS Energy, and several other city utilities and electric cooperatives. The idea is to promote plug-in electric vehicle travel in and along the corridor by promoting their use, offering more charging stations and creating integrated charging infrastructure and payment structures. It would also help relieve "range anxiety," the fear that an electric car will run out of juice, which keeps some away from making the jump to them.

The Pecan Street Project – a demonstration “smart grid” energy system in the emerging Mueller development – was featured on the PBS NewsHour.

Charles Upshaw, a mechanical engineering graduate student working on the project, told StateImpact Texas the initiative is ”a collaboration between the University of Texas, the City of Austin, Austin Energy and a bunch of companies. In order to really test, and have a real world kind of experiment with high density residential solar, they have offered additional incentives to the [Mueller homeowners] on top of the Austin energy rebate and the federal rebate, so the people in Mueller have an opportunity to get solar really cheaply.”